


hollow bones

by bluecheeked



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Love, M/M, References to Depression, Unreliable Narrator, Unspecified Setting, doors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-29
Updated: 2019-09-29
Packaged: 2020-11-01 11:15:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20814230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluecheeked/pseuds/bluecheeked
Summary: for there are few things crueler than leaving the boy you love without saying goodbye.





	hollow bones

The night Mark Lee lost his virginity was also the last night Jaemin Na saw Donghyuck. 

That is to say—Mark Lee and Jaemin Na slept together. Mark Lee lost his virginity. And Donghyuck Lee, beautiful and windswept and far quieter than anyone gave him credit for, disappeared off the face of the Earth and through a door to nowhere. 

* * *

Let me start over. Let me rephrase. 

* * *

You know of doors, and thus, you know of Doors. Just as you know of both death and Death, whether you realize it or not. It is subconscious, I think, in the same way that we subconsciously fear things in the dark and gleaming eyes in the distance. In the same way Mark Lee subconsciously loved the glint of Donghyuck’s smile and maybe the stony, faraway look on his face when he gazed out over the grey sea and talked about drowning. 

Mark prodded just far enough to see the hurt, the wild edge to some of his words, a wound that could not heal on its own. Donghyuck got help. Donghyuck took his meds. Donghyuck was good, was patient, and Mark loved him so ferociously it threatened to swallow him whole. 

He was never good with any of that, never quite learned  _how. _ His father was cool, his mother was distant, and he’d never had any siblings, just big dog after big dog that licked his face and kept his heart kind, kept his hands gentle. Girls scared him, smelled too sweet, felt too strange under his fumbling, sweaty hands. Boys were mean and laughed at him, threw insults that wore him down until all he wanted to do was hide under the dripping pine trees and fade into their trunks. 

High school was better. High school had Jaemin, had Donghyuck. 

Donghyuck took his meds, took his time. Still, though, he thought about Doors, about the open-close, about stepping through.

It is October, a Friday, not quite Halloween but getting close. There are two boys in a bedroom, and one of them is Mark Lee. The other is not Donghyuck, but he’s still got two fingers in Mark Lee’s ass and his tongue in Mark’s mouth. Their shirts aren’t even all the way off. 

Mark calls Jaemin by the wrong name three times, and Jaemin notices but doesn’t say anything. He’ll talk to Jeno about it later, but for now, he whispers quietly to Mark, tells him to relax and breathe and asks him if it hurts, if he wants to slow down or stop. It’s awkward, almost unbearably so, and Jaemin uses too much lube and Mark bangs his elbow on his headboard at one point, so hard his hand goes numb. 

“Hyuck,” Mark breathes as Jaemin wraps a hand around his cock, heat building in his lower belly. “Donghyuck,” he says again, not much later as Jaemin strokes him through his orgasm, oversensitive and twitching a little. His knees hurt, and his hand is still numb. "Donghyuck," he says for the third time, out-of-breath and dizzy.

Jaemin collapses next to Mark, and has to finish by himself. He doesn’t mind, doesn’t blame Mark for it. Donghyuck is not an easy person to love, Jaemin knows. Just as Mark is not an easy person to be loved by. 

Mark falls asleep within a few minutes, barely managing to pull the dirty sheets off his bed and wipe the come off his belly before he crawls beneath his faded quilt, breathing evening out. 

Jaemin gets up quietly, pulls his jeans on, and leaves Mark in his bed. 

There’s a phone booth at the end of the block, and Jaemin steps inside of it just as it begins to rain. He hates fall for this exact reason, hates having to wear pants and hats, hates Renjun for leeching all the heat out of him, hates Jeno and his dumb calls at one AM on the landline, the kind that make Jaemin race downstairs before his parents wake up. 

Donghyuck loves fall. And Mark loves the way his yellow raincoat looks against his skin, like he’s taken the summer sun and wrapped it around his bones until the days start lengthening again. 

Jaemin knows about the Doors, sort of. His older sister found one, once, while they were visiting their aunt faraway in her countryside house, with its sliding paper doors and strange echoing stairwells. She’d opened it and all Jaemin had seen was white—years later, he realizes it was snow, heaps and heaps of it, glittering on the trees and on the frozen lake in the distance.

“That was Christmas break, Jaemin,” his sister chided him when he tried to tell her the story a few years back. “Of course it was snowing.” 

Jaemin knows better. It was August, and the Door had shown something… _not. _

He dials Donghyuck’s number. Hopes he’s at home. Knows he’s not. 

Donghyuck picks up anyway. Hope is good like that. 

“I slept with Mark Lee,” Jaemin says, and the silence that stretches between them is awful, makes Jaemin feel guilty and nauseated even though Donghyuck  _said _ he didn’t care, because he was leaving anyway and it wouldn’t make sense for him to give himself to Mark Lee like that. Jaemin had said  _then don’t _ and Donghyuck had looked at Jaemin for a long time before finally saying  _I thought you knew me better. _

Jaemin has never really known Donghyuck, mercurial and shifting, bright but a little strange, straightforward but perhaps a little feral, a little ragged, like sun on the tops of the mountains. But he knows that Donghyuck, at his core, is all or nothing. Jaemin just didn’t think Mark Lee was an  _all. _

“It’s fine, Jaemin,” Donghyuck says at last, even though it’s not. “I’m leaving anyway, remember? You can have him. Boyfriends have always been good for you.” 

Jaemin likes boyfriends. He likes a lot of them, careful and kind and doting and funny, with good smiles or no smiles, soft and too rough. He’s always liked Mark Lee, too, with his loud laugh and his jokes and his quiet, watching eyes. He’s always liked Mark Lee, but Donghyuck has always loved him. 

“You could stay,” Jaemin suggests for the thousandth time. In the distance, lightning strikes the sea. 

“I can’t,” Donghyuck replies for the millionth. “I have to go. I don’t want to stay.” 

“There’s only one Mark Lee,” Jaemin points out. “They said—” 

“I know what they said,” Donghyuck cuts in. “But there’s also only one me.” 

Jaemin is suddenly angry, irrationally so. He’s often fed-up with Donghyuck—they all are—but for the first time, he’s actually  _pissed off. _ Donghyuck, with his made-up higher purpose, with his talks about Doors and leaving and drowning, when he should’ve just taken his meds and kept his mouth shut and kissed Mark Lee once or twice or maybe a hundred times. 

“You’re so fucking selfish,” Jaemin spits, and he can  _feel _ Donghyuck wince through the phone. 

The phone tells him he has two minutes left on the call. 

“I know,” Donghyuck says quietly. “I’m sorry. I tried, you know?” 

“You didn’t,” Jaemin snaps back, but his anger already tempered by the cool melancholy in Donghyuck’s voice. “You didn’t even kiss him.” 

“I know,” Donghyuck says again. 

“I know you do.” Jaemin exhales, leaning his forehead against the cool glass. “It sucks.” 

Static fills Jaemin’s ears. Donghyuck sighs. “I love you, Jaemin Na.” 

“Not like you love Mark Lee,” Jaemin whispers. “Which, if you weren’t a selfish coward, you’d tell him.” 

“He’ll know,” Donghyuck says distantly. A block away, Mark Lee sleeps peacefully for the last time in his life, oblivious to the fact that he is loved so wholly and completely, so violently and all-consuming that it puts all the great stories to shame. In fact, this  _is _ a great story. Donghyuck would even argue that is the The Great Story, better than Shakespeare or Austen or any of them, those old dusty authors that could only  _dream _ of what Donghyuck feels. 

“I want to see you,” Jaemin says. “Please.”

“Okay,” Donghyuck replies. “Did you hurt him?” 

“No,” Jaemin answers, and then reconsiders. “Well, maybe a little. I tried not to.” 

Donghyuck pauses, and the line flickers. “I miss him.” 

“You could stay.” 

“I can’t.” 

“I know.” 

* * *

Do you get it now? Or would you like one more story? 

Yes, another story. That is always better. 

Let me see: 

* * *

You know about doors, and Doors, and Donghyuck Lee. Now you know that there are crueler things than both death and Death. One of them is leaving without saying goodbye. 

It’s October, still a bit before Halloween, and Jaemin Na hooks up with Mark Lee. Jaemin Na checks his Snapchat, sends one last picture to Donghyuck Lee, and then goes to sleep. 

Mark, on the other hand, goes for a walk. 

He finds Donghyuck where he always is—the park by Donghyuck’s house—sitting on a wet swing, breath fogging in the air. It’s cold, and it’s starting to rain. Mark is pretty sure he’s still got lube in his ass, and the whole thing is so uncomfortable that he can barely find the right words to say. 

They don’t need words, however, because Donghyuck gets up off the swing and kisses Mark Lee so hard that he staggers backwards. But from there it’s all natural, and Donghyuck licks into Mark’s mouth and cradles his face so tenderly it breaks Mark’s heart. He tastes like salt and the sea and a hundred goodbyes. 

“Where are you going?” Mark asks, and Donghyuck’s eyes are stormy, expression unreadable. 

“Through a door,” Donghyuck says, though of course he means a Door. “I’ve gotta go, Mark.” 

“But I love you,” Mark says, and in any other world, those words would be enough to make Donghyuck stay. He’s a romantic at heart, after all. “I don’t think—I don’t know if I’ll ever love someone like I love you.” 

Donghyuck starts to cry, just a little. He pulls Mark into a tight hug, chin digging into Mark’s shoulder. His denim jacket smells a bit like Jaemin, which only makes Donghyuck cry more. 

Mark’s whole body is trembling, and it’s like he’s trying to shake apart into a hundred little pieces. Donghyuck squeezes him tighter and doesn’t let him. 

“Please,” Mark whispers, voice cracking a little. Donghyuck feels him swallow. “_Please,_ Hyuck. You could stay.” 

Donghyuck pulls away just enough to look Mark in the eye, thumbs gentle over his cheekbones. “I—I can’t, Mark. This—it’s too much. It’s hollowed me out.” Gutted him like a fish, split him open from belly to throat, has drained him, dried him up, taken the color from his cheeks and the breath from his lungs. Donghyuck has given everything he’s had, and this world still expects more. 

“I don’t want you to go,” Mark mumbles, eyes cast down. “I don’t know how I’m supposed to—” 

“Don’t,” Donghyuck says fiercely, forcing Mark to meet his gaze. “Don’t say that. Don’t do that to yourself.” 

Mark’s lips part, and Donghyuck swallows his argument down with his own mouth. Mark melts into Donghyuck’s touch, their bodies fitting together naturally, like each of them has been carving out a space for the other for a long, long time. 

“Close your eyes,” Donghyuck whispers against Mark’s mouth. “Keep them closed. If you don’t watch me—if you can’t see it—” 

“Then it’ll never be true,” Mark replies, hands tightening around Donghyuck’s waist. He nods slightly. “Okay.”

Donghyuck pulls out of his grasp. Mark’s eyelashes flutter, but, true to his word, he doesn’t open his eyes. He stands like that for a long, long time. 

Eventually, his phone buzzes in his pocket. It’s Jaemin, sleepy and wondering where he went. 

“I’m coming,” Mark says, and without a second glance, he leaves the park. 

In the distance, a door swings shut. 

* * *

And closer, much closer, a door opens. 

Mark Lee walks through, and lies down on his bed. The sheets have been freshly changed, and the window is open. It’s rained recently, and the edges of the curtains are wet. 

It is October, nearly Halloween, and Jaemin Na slept with Mark Lee. He’s always liked Mark, though he doesn't  (and will never) love him in the way another boy does. 

The bed is warm, and Mark’s hair is a little wet. So are his socks. 

“You should stay,” Mark says. There is an arm over his waist, though he’s not sure if it’s a dream or not. His back sort of hurts, still, and he wonders if having sex will always be so uncomfortable. Kissing is much better, and  _this, _ better still. Lying in bed, together, warm body against warm body. Loved. Safe. 

“I could.” 

“You should,” Mark repeats. “I’ll make breakfast.” 

“Mm,” Donghyuck Lee says, eyes fluttering closed. “Maybe I will, then.” 

**Author's Note:**

> even after all of this, i still couldn't bear to make it a true, absolute sad ending. sad things are for other sorts of days, and today was too nice to leave mark standing in the rain.


End file.
